Objects of Desire
Commodification of Gender on the Titles of Popular Hindi Novels

Atmaram K. Bhakal

Thousands of bookstalls on numerous railway platforms across India sell reading material for travellers. A large number of these are inexpensive novels with detective, romantic, and moral themes, although occasionally one may also find some classics. In addition, such bookstalls display self-help books as well as religious discourses. Possibly the most eye-catching aspects of such books are their front jackets which attempt to catch the mood or flavor of the inside content. In particular, such covers, especially those that adorn detective novels, cast women and women in stereotypcial ways.Interestingly, many such books are available only on railway platforms and it would be difficult to find them in the usual bookshop in town. This short study focuses on a collection of some such Hindi novels and their jacket covers, found displayed in railway book stalls across Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, where these are published. Such novels are available in Hindi and Urdu, the dominant languages of this region.

The titles and the cover pictures of these popular novels may be read as catering to the assumed mind-set of potential readers largely drawn from the vernacular lower middle class of the region. Such readers undoubtedly read these novels to while away their time during a long railway journey.  However, it is also apparent that such readers seek other desires within the text which in turn find visual expression in the jacket covers that adorn such books.The novels available on the stalls seek to attract the potential reader’s eye with their catchy titles and images which frequently resonate with pictures from earlier novels of the series. Such is the mesmerising pull of these titles and cover pictures that the reader is not satisfied till the book is read from cover to cover.

Most such detective and romantic novels have similar themes, but it is their titles and jacket-cover pictures that lend them an aura of mystery that plays upon the cultivated imagination and suppressed desires of the reader. At the same time, such novels also have plot lines that capitalise on prevailing concerns of the society in which the reader lives. For instance, a popular theme is the love affair between a rich protagonist (male or female) and a poor person; another is the romance between a criminal and an honest but poor woman. Affairs of the criminal underworld are also a common staple of such novels.Dialogues as well as plots are frequently borrowed from popular movies. The conflict between the rich and poor also find expression in Robin Hood like characters who steal from the wealthy to help the needy. Other novels have militaristic themes. The titles and jacket covers reflect this wide and diverse range of subjects and concerns, but also seek to lure a reader seeking to escape from the routines of a monotonous life. Through brief interviews, a few artists in this field expressed that they generally portray the mood of the narrative as well as the repressed interest/desires of the readers.

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